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Mark Zuckerberg Answers to Facebook's Moderation of Controversial Content
PowerfulJRE | Date added: 25-August-22

 

My response...

It appears to me from watching this that Zuckerberg doesn't like the position he's found himself in with Facebook/Meta, having to "govern" what people get to say/hear/read/watch/believe, but the reason him and the other major platforms (Twitter, Google/Youtube) are in this very position is because they failed, early on in their (and the rest of the internet's) development to say "No, we will not comply, the internet should be free and open for all." But we don't have that internet any more, at least the masses don't, we have an infiltrated commercial and political system of Double Speak.

When you start deciding (or siding with) what's supposedly "right or wrong" you end up in this situation that, as he says, isn't "black or white". When you repeatedly lie, and it might only be with white lies, they begin to weigh on you until your world falls apart. Zuckerberg lives this lie every day and you can see it in any explanation about anything he tries to give. Repeatedly (and this video is no exception) I've seen Zuckerberg squirm in his seat while trying to answer tricky questions; he is incapable, in his position, to provide straightforward, honest and transparent answers, whether it to be to Joe Rogan, his millions of viewers of this video, or the court hearings he's found himself presenting evidence to.

Zuckerberg, (like Musk, Gates and Bazos) just wants to be the cool kid that made that cool thing, but he'll never be that (again) because he wasn't the cool kid that stood up for himself (and everyone else) for what's right - he's clearly trying (way too) hard with Meta. Youtube, for the same reason, is despised by many, even those that use it because it still carries so much clout compared to the other video-sharing platforms out there (the entrenched masses are slow to pick up on the alternatives). Musk is seemingly now doing what he can to reveal the underpinnings of this mentality within the system that is Twitter.

I was surprised to see Zuckerberg on JRE. The only reason, and we've seen it before, is to try and win some ground and present his case to an audience he must know is against him. These things never work out well; nice try Zuckerberg, but you had no chance.

What do you think?

 

It's Happening
Russell Brand | Date added: 24-August-22

 

My response...

Why is it that the privately-owned banks should profit from every transaction that takes place? I don't think they should and this is probably the primary reason why I prefer to deal with cash.

The day before watching this video I had a couple of related experiences. After doing some work for a client (who paid me by cheque because she didn't have enough cash - I now have to cash that cheque), I drove to a nearby carpark overlooking the sea to enjoy a break. Technically the carpark is Pay&Display (whatever that means) but I pulled into a space and enjoyed a cup of coffee from my flask.

I came to realise that there was emerging a bit of a kafuffle at the nearby payment meter; I had my window down a little and it seemed that the somewhat flashy new machine was failing to accept card payments - I thought perhaps that some online thing via an app on a phone was also an option and that people were eventually discovering, after minutes of trying, that this wasn't working either. These people needed to instead pay by cash, for which few of them had. Some of them decided to (I think) go and buy cups of coffee from the neighbouring cafe in order to exchange notes for change for the meter. "What a faff!" I chuckled while I sat there for free. It amused me how things just grind to a halt like this whenever payment systems go down, and they do. Once I visited a touristy place and when I proceeded to buy a ticket, I, and others, were being allowed in for free because the payment system was down and they wanted to keep people happy and moving (it was a busy day).

Continuing on with my day and I called into a small supermarket. When I came to the manned checkout (as I prefer to use rather than the machine that is the self-service) it transpired that the person currently at the point of paying for their shopping was 13p short. Had I been next in line, and realised in time, I would have gladly paid this for this stranger, but already they had dashed off out to the carpark to get some more money. I guess that even if the next person was to be paying by card they could have simply swiped their card across the machine, or maybe 13p would have been too small a transaction for this to be accepted?

All of these various ways of paying, from simple credit cards where you put in a pin number, to "Contactless", to using your phone, or now your hand, seem to just add extra complications. They also don't seem to be as swift as people might think, especially when you factor in when things go wrong, like when people go to swipe and they're over the limit and then have to insert the card and recall their pin. Or when a card is declined. Perhaps there will be a day when TS(seriously)HTF and people can't purchase the necessities in life.

Scanning ones' hand to pay seems more stupid to me than swiping a card. Stores have CCTV and systems are able to identify people from their appearance, the way they walk, or use iris recognition, so why do we have to "checkout" at all? Why not have a system that recognises you as soon as you step into the store, sees what you take from the shelf, and you just take what you want and the system automatically charges your bank account? We're surely not that far away from this, so why this interim of waving ones' hand over a machine like a moron?

Creeping normality is the answer I come up with. Imagine if it was 20 years ago, when people were more used to using cash, or perhaps cheques or simple credit cards, and it was then proposed that we have all our data and transactions stored in systems and that it was all for our convenience, and that payment was automatically taken, seamlessly, without us having to do anything (or dare I say "lift a finger")? This would be a big mental hurdle for people to grapple with - it is said that "people don't like change" - the answer, therefore is to sneak changes in gradually. When too much of a leap in "technological advancement" is taken then people are prone to reject it, and then, I have noticed, a step back is taken, and then smaller steps are taken forwards back towards that same thing.

The progression of Microsoft Windows is a case in point. People rejected the changes inflicted on them by Windows 8 - the Start Button and Menu disappearing, so Microsoft brought these things partially back in 8.1. Now 10 and 11 are more insidious than ever, such as demanding users have a Microsoft Account, continually doing away with the traditional Control Panel, and siphoning off who knows what data about us to the overlords.

Russell Brand keeps coming out with these silly titles for his videos; they're short and "scary", but to say "It's Happening" is an understatement; this stuff has been creeping in for decades and most people fail to react because it's slow and subtle enough to be below the average person's radar. His next video is titled "This Is DANGEROUS", a previous one was "So, It WAS All A Scam". Oooo.

What do you think?

 

[Gender and] The Amount of Round-Up & Plastic Contamination in Food
PowerfulJRE | Date added: 13-July-22

 

My response... (with cleaner language!)

Why are so many people seemingly gender-confused? I've wanted to write about this for a while, in fact I have written at length about it, but my efforts weren't so coherent (which is hardly surprising given the topic I suppose) but I was also aware (as I still am) that I might get a certain amount of flack/dislike for airing my thoughts on the subject. How dare I? and all that. This would also be somewhat ironic given a particular thing (LGBT...) is supposedly about love and acceptance. But we're all loving individuals here, right?

The "JRE" clip above is certainly not the best conversation to share, since it's hardly a serious discussion to do things justice, and it borderline (if not blatantly) mocks those concerned, but it does echo some of the things I have previously tried to put forward, such as suggested reasons for this 'apparent outbreak' of stuff.

I call it this because I liken it to, for example, some of the news that gets banded about, like food or fuel shortages, that leads people to go out and grab what they can, thus leading to actual food/fuel shortages. Algorithms at play on social media sites like Youtube itself can put people in an echo chamber leading them to believe something is a major topic that the whole world is revolving around. Indeed, some social platforms (and Neocities is certainly one of them) seem to attract a type of person, leading to a projected bias in content, while other people perhaps either distance themselves or just keep quiet. This is partly why talking about this, and other such topics, fall on some easily-offended ears.

For a start, I don't get why so many people feel the need to label themselves and say or even consider what gender they are - to me this is not normal. But I see something is going around that encourages this, especially among youngsters. If their peers do it, or perhaps a celebrity does it who they look up to, then they feel compelled to do it to. And who doesn't want to not fit in?

Overly thinking about something generally brings something about in one form or another. Take an alcoholic for example that obsesses over "not drinking". Doing that will not help their cause. Likewise, obsessing over a popular thing you want to buy will, should you have that obsessive and compulsive nature, lead you to justify seeking out and (if you have the means), obtaining that thing. This is where the pursuit of being a different gender comes in. I've seen it with the whole "coming out" thing where a gay person becomes fixated on that thing (I watched TV soaps years ago where this was sometimes a story-line). As as straight person I wouldn't have to "come out" as such, so if this other persuasion is supposed to be "normal" why should one have to explain themselves? I think part of the answer here is attention - if a celebrity "comes out" then they get attention, so youngsters, again, aspire to this behaviour.

I'm certainly not immune from these obsessive behaviours; I've seen things I've wanted and imagined having those things and have not been able to let it go until I end up seeking it and justifying my decision. I remember doing this at school when I would had a crush on someone and without even considering how they felt, I put them on the spot and asked them out, suddenly, without restraint or tact, and in front of others - this is very embarrassing to look back on!

But gender confusion? And I think it generally is a confusion and partly brought about by the very topic, but also, as per the JRE discussion, likely has other factors. Chemicals in food and packaging (plastics are said to have hormone-altering substances in). Water and beef end up with high levels of oestrogen in, affecting particularly those going through puberty, and thus ones' hormonal balance. Puberty, btw, could probably be considered a most fragile state to go through, making us particularly susceptible to such influences (I experienced some odd things myself to appreciate this). Radiation from phones and Wi-Fi have been said to have a particular effect on, worryingly, a young girl's egg production, but boys surely aren't going to be immune from this.

Incidentally, just this week I listened to a topic on the radio about servicemen who (aged little over 18 years) were used during the cold war at nuclear weapons testing sites; many of them went on to not only develop cancers themselves, but pass on what can be described as genetic malformations to not only their offspring, but their grand-children also. Phone masts and Wi-Fi (admittedly considered to emit a different level of radiation) could finally be shown to be having the effects some people (aka so-called conspiracy theorists) warned us about decades ago. Maybe it's not the mutations one would have been expecting, but is this somewhat subtle influence on hormone balance that is leading to problems.

The sad concern is that when youngsters, who are still developing, look to take this further and further twist themselves biologically through the use of hormone drugs and even surgery. There is obviously (to me at least) an agenda (no pun intended) and financial incentive at play here. For this there can be little return and it's obviously far worse (but not too dissimilar) to get getting tattoos that you later regret. Attention deficit and the hyper-fixated people we are becoming through our use of technology could also be playing a part. Perhaps some people just need something different to revolve their thoughts around... me writing about the subject probably doesn't help!

What do you think?

 

[LEAKED] AI is WHAT Now?!!
Russell Brand | Date added: 17-June-22

 

My response...

When I was new to the internet, way back when, I frequently logged into Yahoo! Chat!. It certainly wasn't a happy time, just like with Geocities, when the service was shut down.

As I recall, one particular blight within Yahoo! Chat, and increasingly so (and perhaps a reason why the service was shut down), was so-called Spam-bots. This problem clearly still persists today; if you look at pretty much any one of Russell Brand's own recent videos, in the comments sections, you will find 'spam bots' at play, posing as Russell, posting URLs, or trying to get users to contact them. Twitter and other popular platforms have similar issues.

Another way some bots (chat bots) would behave in Yahoo! Chat would be by masquerading as real people. You would find yourself in a conversation with them and it would become apparent, usually pretty quickly, that the responses were canned ones. You'd gain certainty in this regard by employing some form of a Turing Test.

I suppose I wondered who was behind deploying these nuisance bots, and mostly that's probably what I ultimately thought they were, a nuisance, and perhaps just set up by someone who thought they were being 'clever', such as a griefer before I was even aware of that term or trait. Perhaps I was naive to think this.

If we fast-forward almost 20 years (as for me it can seem like that time has passed in the blink of an eye), did those chat bots just vanish with Yahoo! Chat? Or, as is surely most likely, were they deployed elsewhere? And again, by who, and why?

Within the past 20 years pretty much everyone has found their way online, here in the west at least, and like, me, probably spend a significant portion of an average day connected in some form or another. A popular Youtube channel or Twitter account can have millions of followers, and content receive millions of views. Therefore, when bots find their way onto those popular channels, as they tend to do, they gain a vast audience.

Also, as I now consider, how have those bots developed? Because surely they must have. And furthermore, why who?

This so-called 'LEAKED' information regarding a Google employer's conversation with AI to me is partly 'nonsensical' and partly, well, "what do you expect?" Further more, if we consider AI-chat-bot technology in conjunction with Google/Youtube's (or Facebook's) "algorithms" (designed to manipulate the user, such as by getting them to stay on the channel and watch more videos - which I believe is only part of what they're up to) we can perhaps more fully "appreciate" the ramifications of such technology. Let me elaborate:

The nature of the leak, i.e. how the employee describes their conversation with this AI entity is nonsensical because, as with those chat bots of old, on Yahoo! Chat, they clearly just employed canned responses based on whatever you told it. The worst thing you can do (for your own sanity) is start believing the thing is real, which clearly in the case of this Google thing is what the person was doing. Obviously the 'chat bot' is just just cleverer and has more techniques (such as actual AI) up its sleeve.

If we also take that chat-bot-of-old and consider it as a project/operation run by some, say, military outfit with the budget/people/skills/motive to develop it week by week, month by month, year by year, for decades (just like they have with AI itself to bring us driverless cars and lure us into consuming more and more nonsensical content), we should perhaps see how far this technology WILL HAVE come, and what it's doing/is capable of now. Not only could this be manipulating any one of us on any of these major platforms, but it will be capable of doing so in such a way that we probably don't see, or appreciate.

What products we buy, what political party we vote for, what news head lines are fed to us and which ones we believe or give thought and time to, what comments we make, what gender think we are, could all be a manipulation by an entity that either benefits from you thinking/believing those things, or benefits from you having your head totally f*cked with. Considering how our own governments treat us these days (and you might need to open your eyes a little to see this), and how our home-grown corporations treat their fellow, native, human beings, also suggests to me that you don't necessarily have to point the finger very far (as the media/governments generally encourage us to do).

I've had my suspicions for a while, that some of our headline-hitting issues in the past few years, have been AI-driven.

In this video [link] about DALL-E 2 - "How This A.I. Draws Anything You Describe", the key line for me was that it seeks to draw what we will find pleasing; this is what social media algorithms do, they seek to provide content that will keep us in the system. The weird thing is, the same has been said of our plane of existence in relation to the human souls, and why we chose to come here... and what keeps us here. That A.I. can and does keep us hooked to various platforms provides evidence for both Simulation Theory and reincarnation; have you ever left a platform only to find yourself compelled to return?

What do you think?

 

Friends: Rachel Asks Ross To Be Her Backup
TBS | Date added: 12-June-22

 

My response...

Friends was a TV staple in my younger years and so from time to time a clip such as this crops up in my Youtube feed and I have a few nostalgic minutes, and a giggle.

This is one such clip, but besides what the clip is supposed to be about I consider and observe other things:

 - How Monica turns up at Joey's apartment (looking for Rachel) and (instead) lands her sh!t on him.

 - How Rachel turns up at Ross's apartment, where he's there on his own, having a beer.

I consider how Friends paints a picture of, and defines and creates a culture (among viewers), where these behaviours are normal(ised) and acceptable.

If you live in a world where these things aren't normal or acceptable, you're likely to either find these scenes jarring, or weird. I like how Joey manages the situation with Monica; he tries his best to say whatever needs to be said to, at best, help to resolve Monica's issue, or at least not make things worse by giving poor advise. He is commendable for staying true to himself in the face of the sudden arrival of Monica in his apartment (also a strange thing to occur in my opinion, but a normal occurrence throughout the entirety of Friends). I could imagine Monica being either someone I try to avoid (my apartment door would be locked!), I would unlikely be as chilled out as Joey (or at least I would just let the person have their rant without providing my 2 cents), or at the extreme I would tell them to F-off and deal with their own drama.

One also needs to consider the lack of mobile phones in the lives of these characters; Rachel turns up at Ross' place unannounced; in this day people would at least txt/whatsapp ahead (unless your relationship is as such that it's acceptable to just turn up). Indeed, if Ross was there just drinking a beer, we'd surely arrive to find the TV on or him on his phone, but what else was he doing? Seemingly nothing - these characters (as they often are in soaps and comedy), while funny/entertaining, are pretty empty in that they don't really have any hobbies or interests; this to me dissuades the viewer from being any different. I consider Phoebe to me the deepest character, as she has this "other world" to her of which humorous snippets get revealed to us in various plot lines (just like the supposed times that she agreed with Joey/Ross that they would be her backup). Who just sits in their home having a drink, with nothing else going on (unless depressed)? Obviously I'm likely to be reading too much into a piece of fiction, but 1) I'm not someone that would literally be sat doing nothing besides having a drink, and 2) It grates me when I've had people assume I'm doing nothing prior to when they turn up/phone/start chatting to me online. Of course, my "something" might be just watching clips of Friends on Youtube.

What do you think?

 

Dating Apps SCREW Young Men, Making It Difficult To Date Women
Timecast IRL | Date added: 05-June-22

 

My response...

This issue that Tim describes, of women having access to older, more desirable men, is not a new thing because of online dating. I experienced this during high school (although I wasn't perhaps consciously aware of this at the time). What would happen is this...

We finish junior school and start high school. Most people are now new and there's a four-year age gap from the first to the last year, so most people are older too. Suddenly you go from being in the oldest year (of junior school), to being in the youngest. The girls now in the first year invariably "have access to" or are more attracted to (it seems) guys in the older years (there is a natural or cultural tendency for them to do this - guys mature later, women naturally seek a more protective mate, yada-yada...), conversely the younger guys suddenly find their options greatly reduced (at first it might appear to them that they suddenly have more options because they're somewhere new, but that impression will wane over time).

That Tim also describes how these older wealthier guys have access to younger women, and what this does to/for both the younger and older men should not be considered in isolation - those older men will grow up and then what? Settle down with their younger woman, or would they perhaps develop the tendency to keep turning to the dating pool for that young lady? The younger men, by comparison, who (as he describes) fails to get a girlfriend, will grow up to be in that older age group, and then what? They are suddenly granted access to those younger women they were once denied? Only if one is not otherwise affect by years of not having a girlfriend will that go smoothly, or be a realistic expectation. I can imagine a developed mindset where those now older men will have an expectation towards younger women that they should just date them because they are now older, while likely being less "mature", and maybe even less wealthy because they've been wallowing in their life of singledom.

Maybe those younger men, once they grow in years, will perhaps just sort of give up on the prospect of finding someone, or at worst we can see how this might fuel suicide rates among young men (who are also, getting older, assuming they don't succeed in their efforts).

The take-home point is that we can't consider this issue as being static or in isolation, it's a trend that has been moving its way both through society and time and some forecasting is required to see where it's heading.

P.S. The video drifts off into topics of sex and porn that you might want to avoid, or you get to learn that Tim's porn of choice involves superheroes swinging from lights...

What do you think?

 

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